1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to an adapter for the electrical connections of a car radio.
2. Description of the Related Art
On their rear side, car radios have plug-in connectors which are used to set up a connection to a cable harness in the vehicle. There are a wide variety of embodiments and configurations of the plug-in connectors. This results in the problem that not every car radio can be readily connected in each vehicle since the plug-in connectors on the car radio and on the cable harness of the vehicle are designed differently. On one hand, this makes it more difficult for the end user to retrofit a car radio and, on the other hand, requires the car radio manufacturer, during initial installation, to constantly adapt the plug-in connectors to the differently designed plug-in connectors of various vehicle manufacturers or sometimes even to various plug-in connectors of various vehicle models of a single manufacturer. As a result, different variants of the device are required solely on account of the different plug-in connectors. In addition to considerable development and tool costs, this also leads to increased logistical complexity.
As an alternative to adapting the plug-in connectors of the car radio to the special plug-in connector of the vehicle cable harness, use may be made of adapter cables which have the respective compatible mating connectors for the car radio and the cable harness at their ends. In this case, a separate adapter cable is then generally required for each plug-in connection, thus resulting in increased plug-in complexity during installation of the radio and in a confusing installation situation (“cable clutter”) in the case of preinstalled adapter cables.
Therefore, it is an object of the invention to specify an adapter for electrical connections of a car radio, the adapter avoiding the abovementioned disadvantages and facilitating installation.